City will be like Astana: Chandrababu Naidu

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has said Amaravati will be “tomorrow’s land” like another Astana, Kazakh-stan’s capital. In a recent exclusive interview to Deccan Chronicle, he said the Public Private Partnership model of Ast-ana would be followed for Amaravati.

Mr Naidu said, “We have to offer land to the investors and attract them, like what they did in Astana. All private investors were attracted to it. A private entity may set up a convention centre when land is offered to it. The government will in turn get taxes and will benefit due to the business activity.”

The futuristic city of Amaravati will have features like vertical constructions along the 30-km Krishna riverfront like in Astana, which is also located on the banks of a river.

“Amaravati will be a unique blue and green capital city. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Astana. He then briefed me on the infrastructural marvels of Astana and Asghabat, capital cities of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. He also suggested that I send a delegation to these cities to study them and incorporate some of the best practices,” said Mr Naidu.

The state government has decided to send teams to these cities after the capital’s foundation ceremony. Interestingly, CNN had stated that Astana was the world’s “weirdest capital” with “strangely futuristic structures”.

Critics say Astana has an issue of not paying compensation for lands taken    from locals; also the building boom there has lessened recently. The Guardian too commented that Astana was one of the “strangest” capital cities of the world, which was constructed in a place where “wolves outnumbered humans”.

Advocate, rights activist and convener of farmers’ association of capital area, Mr M. Seshagiri Rao, said, “Astana is built with oil money. Andhra is a different case. Compensation has still not been paid to the people. Even houses were razed there. We don’t want the same to happen here.”